Ethan
Noah doesn't tell me what's actually on his mind that night, and I don't push, mostly because I've got my own version of the same thing sitting unspoken in my chest, something I'm not ready to hand over either. We spend the rest of the evening working through the venue paperwork in comfortable quiet, and by the time we finally go to bed, whatever almost got said between us stays exactly where it was, close but untouched.
The alumni dinner comes up two days later, an annual thing the hockey program hosts to keep boosters happy, current players required to attend in dress clothes and make polite conversation with men twice their age who still talk about their glory days like they happened last week instead of twenty years ago.
Noah's not required to be there, obviously, it's a hocke
